Fun with foil..

adam0321

adam0321

Joined
Aug 20, 2009
Messages
495
So as most of us probaly do, I cary alluminum foil in my kit. Well today I tried to boil some water using it. Worked fine except for every time I set it down, my german shepherd would grab the end of it and run off dowsing my fire. He thought it was a great game. This device took me less than 5 minutes to make and would boil a bit over 2 cups of water.

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb476/adam0321/IMG_0433.jpg

http://i1207.photobucket.com/albums/bb476/adam0321/IMG_0434.jpg

more to come. Once or twice a week my wife and I have our dinner at a local camping spot. We cook dinner using the fire and my primus mf stove. She usualy uses the stove to make rice, corn etc. I do the grilling and make the corn on the fire using foil. The dogs love it and it's a chance to get out of the city.
 
This is how I use foil:

tin-foil-hat.jpg


TF
 
That is a good idea. I use foil all the time when cooking at camp. I think it just makes cooking and cleanup easier. Otherwise, cooking at camp kinda sucks. Especially with a big, annoying, and loud group of people. But I'm not sure I'd use it more than once if doing bushcraft. For boiling it water it might work if you're careful with it. But otherwise it's more a one use item for me.
 
I use to like to use foil for messy, oily stuff like Trouts. Instead of cleaning up, you just put it in the hottest part of the fire and reduced it to almost nothing, for carrying out (LNT).

But, I have discovered an excellent way to clean greasy pots at the campfire-- just dip a cup or so of white ashes from the fire pit into your messy pot. Add an inch or 2 of water. Now, scrub this doubtful looking mess around with your fingers. After a couple of minutes of agitating this mess around, dump it out and rinse. Your pan will be as de-greased and clean as if you had used Dawn dish detergent.

Sounds like bull. Works excellent. Try this at home.
 
Careful of the fingers though. What you are making with the ash is lye. dripping water through hardwood ash is how they used to make lye for lye soap. No bull. :)
 
What is Lye? When cleaning pots, I put a bit of water in the pot then grab a handfull of grass, pine needles, moss etc etc and scrub the pot. Then simply rinse it out.
 
Codger_64 said:
Careful of the fingers though. What you are making with the ash is lye. dripping water through hardwood ash is how they used to make lye for lye soap. No bull. :)
Click to expand...

the tiny amount of lye [maybe] created by his ashes and a little water, with the tiny bit of grease in the pot, would be insignificant, and not worth worrying about.
 
Someone should start a thread about cooking with foil in the woods. I like to prepare potatoes back at home by washing and scrubbing them, dicing them up into large chunks, mix with butter, sprinkle with salt, pepper, herbs and seasonings, then wrap them in foil and throw them in the cooler. Or not, the butter and potatoes will be just fine in the foil. Obviously a lot of messy prep work. The payoff? You just throw them on the coals, on a grill rack, wherever and just leave them alone until they are cooked. You don't really need to turn or mess with them. Take them out and let them cool, then eat them with a fork. They don't require anything, and they're nutritionally satisfying. I mean they're great with a steak or chicken, but they'll satisfy you by themselves too.
 
I believe the woodashes + water(weak lye mixture) and greasy pot insides just makes soap.

This website discusses it: http://www.grannyslyesoap.com/

I used to have an enormous bar of old fashioned "homemade" lye soap, boughten at the local Mormon hardware store. That stuff was so brutal and vicious, if you bathed with it 2 or 3 times in one week, it made your skin feel de-fatted, like you had been rinsed in gasoline! After using it a couple three times, I can understand the historical reluctance of kids to wash with it. I think it's a riot how that website goes on and on about how good it feels to shower with lye soap.

My firepit method for washing a greasy pot is proven effective and safe [to my satisfaction], and not hard on my hands, at all.
 
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